


Capture The Moment

by Fovos



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:04:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fovos/pseuds/Fovos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reflecting on the full breadth of life as charcoal takes Sheepskin hostage. One is left to meditate on how life got you here, and what it could have been. Until you settle on how it is, and how it will be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Capture The Moment

**Author's Note:**

> I can't do it, I can't support any canon character with Killian, just can't. So have the OC that I have with him in my RP. I also, dislike Captain Swan so much that I can only see Killian with boys anymore. Boy's name is Nix, and he's a [Nix](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neck_%28water_spirit%29)(Nyx in our canon). Found in Neverland and a stowaway aboard the Jolly Roger to escape the island. There is more backstory. But really that's all one needs to know.
> 
> [This was written after the art was done.](http://s15.postimg.org/ye3azrb09/rsz_nix.png)

Something said: Yes, there had been a life once before. It was bleak in comparison, somehow darker, and more empty. He’d never admit it out loud, but something had changed. His heart still ached, and he still clawed for revenge, but something had changed. He didn’t know what it was, but it was different. Like walking into a room where a bauble had been moved. You knew something was different but just what you couldn’t place your finger on it.

He traced over lambskin, using every trick he had to move his new right hand to trace the lines he wanted. It was a spontaneous sort of portrait. The kind where the subject was unaware that they were being drawn. He sketched quickly, he’d fill in the shadows and details after the moment passed. The sketch was all he would have to preserve this moment.

His model looking out over the water, taking in the sun and the gentle breeze that kept the deck from being a deathtrap of heat and humidity. Just looking over the water with a little known smirk. What a fairy saw was a mystery, but they could see something mortal eyes missed.

It was sloppy, and he hated his crocodile more for this than most other things involving his hand. Losing the ability to sketch out simple moments of his life, or capture images he feared his memory would lose.

Milah, for all the pain, was forever captured in a portrait worthy of a princess. One that had taken hours, and had made his hand cramp. Now, he was stuck with sloppy sketches with a fake hand that didn’t move the way he needed. It was already cramped, but his hand fell clutching something tightly and he couldn't ever get those muscle to forget that he should relax his not-there tense hand.

Killian didn't think he’d lose the memory of every curve and each line that made up the boy. It was the little details, the smile, the look in the changeling’s eyes, the way the light made him almost glow in comparison. Every mole, freckle. Even that little scar just above his upper lip (even if it was on the other side), those were what we was afraid he’d miss. Forget, somehow.

When everything was said and done, and somehow over. When he lost that warm little smile, and that adoring look he thought he would never see again before the boy. When this, like all love, was done. He'd lose the small things. His sketch had just finished when Nix looked over to him, with adoration and happiness, now Killian had both of those things without asking or paying for any type of delivery.

"It’ll be a calm night, and calm day tomorrow."

"Every moment is calm with you, love."

"The ocean is pleased."

What fae see is a mystery, Killian wouldn't presume to try to solve it. He knew from every subtle glance, from each little tick and way fingers curled around his wrist before slipping down to his hand that he was loved. Whatever redeeming quality the boy chose, then gave into to allow Killian this pleasure was just as much of an enigma, that he wouldn't presume to solve either.

Killian had sworn off love, love was nothing more than pain, one agonizing disappointment and loss after the next. Each moment he lived with love, it tore through him, crushed him in ways he couldn’t describe. Yet the boy pulled him towards the starboard side of the ship and pointed towards the horizon. Words were exchanged and each one rolled through his mind leaving him foggy in his promises and oaths to himself.

"I should go make dinner." The boy concluded, letting Killian’s hand go. Leaving traces of Nix's warmth behind. "If I don’t get a head start I’ll have a pile of pirates bickering over who would be best to eat first right outside my kitchen."

"A course, love, we all know we’d eat Thom first. We’d just be pinnin’ him down."

"Cannibalism is generally frowned upon on this ship."

"Aye, love, but when we go too long—"

"Oh no, we haven’t had a meal since around eight in the morning?"

"That does seem a bit ridiculous, but, we are very hungry men."

"Boys, teenage boys." With that he tucked his bangs behind his ears and shook his head. "Food soon, and no hovering around my kitchen trying to get the scraps."

Another subtle glance before he moved. He didn’t pause for a response, knowing Killian would fire back with some stunning turn of phrase that he was known for. The captain was known for his tongue as much as the hook. And that wasn't a sexual euphemism. 

Part of him wondered how his life came to watching dark hair, that was slightly red under the sunlight, rock back and forth with steady steps on the rocking boat. Watching it vanish under deck and to the galley. He could almost imagine every motion that the changeling went through as he locked himself in to start the evening meal.

He found another barrel to sit on. bracing his boots against the railing. Killian began filling everything in. Recalling the moment over and over, wondering when the last time he had want to capture something so plain happened. Probably before Neverland, the Crocodile, and Milah. He thought back to when he drew her. She sat and modeled, fashioning herself a pirate princess in some regard. Diligently he drew every curl, every detail of her dress, the fabric, each fold.

He didn’t have the steadiness of hand anymore or the control to do the delicate work. Those details seemed trite now, compared to how important he found them then. Now it was hair, face, freckles, moles. Lines, shapes, curves. That little notch in the boy’s ear that marked him as fae, told the world he was a changeling. One that was owned, that he had willingly given his heart to a man with no promise of any return. Who adored a mortal man, dealt with him, didn’t nag at him about this’ and that’s. Just smiled and handed him whatever he liked even if it seemed childish.

He could feel a smile start at his lips. It was funny, upon reflection, how things just washed in life. What parts came in with the tide and stayed. What parts washed out to a death at sea. He remembered being in love before. but the things he remembered were not moments of love. He could remember those, if he pressed his mind towards it. 

With Ahbe, he presented her a necklace he had made with a single pink pearl on it he found out fishing with his father, brother, and various other people from their town. How she jumped into his arms and squeezed him so tightly. How she pressed her lips against his, and told him that she would forever wear pearls.

Or Nayele as he took he for a walk around the town. How she slipped her fingers around his and kissed him in the shadow of the smiths, and whispered against his lips that he had changed her world.

With Milah, the way she pressed her hands against his chest and told him that she knew from the moment that she saw him that he was all she would ever want. How she pulled him close and kissed him before they fell against his desk.

He could think of them, he didn’t think of the sex. Sex was sex, but love was love.

What he remembered without pressing his mind down paths that made his gut sear and heart pang, were the times that they told him something he hated hearing. The way they would look at him with that look (one he swore only women could perfect). The ‘obviously you’re dumber than I, and I am about to point it out to you.’

Ahbe, disparaged his love of adventure. _"No, I refused to be married to a man that wants to walk around the realms. A easy life with you fishing and me providing meals."_

He protested said they would settle, and he didn’t want to walk, but instead sail around until they found the prefect spot for them, where fish were plentiful and he could leave the stinkhole of a town he had called home for fifteen years. But if she wanted he would take his father’s mantle. He didn’t add, he’d quickly become the town drunk and she’d be left to do most of the work until they had sons.

Nayele told him that his loyalty would be the death of him. _"How can you stand up for your brother, what has he ever done for you other than cast a long shadow to keep you cool."_

He tried to justify that prestige wasn’t all there was to life, that he had no desire to usurp his older brother in any means. He would only ascend beyond if his performance willed it, she called him unmotivated. Unwilling to seize the world, and take it. Even if it was from his brother.

Milah hated his wonder in the world, she often times would yell at him to stop looking at trinkets, wildlife, or the way leaves cast shadows on the ground at dusk. Telling him he didn’t have the time. _“How can you waste your time, fearsome pirates are busy pirates.”_

He tried to tell her should she rush through life she’d quickly find the end. And that there was nothing after. She told him should he dawdle life would pass him by and he’d live a unaccomplished life.

He reckoned that he remembered these moments because he put them to the evidence, despite all contrary opinions, of why all of them left him or hurt him. Too caught up in adventure, the simple things, and he had no push to move beyond that. So instead, they could hurt him as deeply as they did.

Now he could think of passionate and romantic, or as romantic as he allowed himself to be, moments. The way Nix snuggled up to him, in that hour before dawn. For a few extra minutes stealing his warmth, and pulling Killian’s arm around him tighter, it didn’t matter which one either. Nix would place a kiss on his wrist (the same place, either arm) then pull away reluctantly, and tell him to go back to sleep.

But for the life of him, he couldn’t fully imagine a fight, any true bickering either of them had ever had. It hadn’t been long, but by now there should be some evidence. Some clue as to what he was doing wrong. Nix delivered his opinions in short statements, and easy to understand facts. But never once disparaged him, any criticism was given with pure heart, and no fight. He didn’t press.

He told Killian to slow down, to watch the horizon, the way the light reflected onto the sails from the water. He laughed at his absurd jokes. Told him to follow his heart, and that he would be there where ever they landed. Smiled and encouraged his childish enthusiasm for things: The way the wind sounded like a flute, on that clear night through their cracked window. The way the shadows created a rabbit on the port-side wall of their room. Even added into the story he started telling about the shadow rabbit, and it's shadowed friends.

He worked on the portrait knowing if he still had the hand his fingers would be black. His left hand was grey from where he smudged the charcoal. He could just imagine the state he'd be in if he had both hands. He’d have to wash up before they ate. Nix hated seeing them eat with dirty hands. They were a bit more refined for pirates now, Nix's changeling parents had taught him, and the crew had obliged, the exchange was hearty rations. (Something more than Hardtack and fish paste.) 

As Killian drew he noticed things, the count of freckles and where they mostly were. He already knew. The shape of the moles on his neck (like Valer, the ship in the stars). How at ease his posture was, and the coy smile. Killian already knew them. Better than he thought he would.

He reeled through every moment from the grey eye’d stowaway who was tossed at his feet, in clothes made from the fibers of Neverland. To the carefree, blue-eyed boy who just smiled at Killian as he left to make dinner. He went through each moment trying to find the tipping point, when the Nyx became his Nix. What in his dark and injured body, mind, and heart told Nix to love him. Unconditionally.

Truly without condition. Killian didn’t need to love him back even. Nix would share his bed, his jokes, his thoughts, and every stray thought he caught for the sole purpose of showing off to someone. He didn’t judge him, or turn him down, or even nag him. He just pointed out things he saw and gave Killian the choice. The choice to change, and should he reject that was alright, he was responsible for his own choices.

One of his mates’ tapped his arm, and nodded towards the door to lower deck. Supper would be soon. Carefully he folded the page as to not disrupt the charcoal, and he set off to his quarters to drop off the pad of sheepskin, the sticks of burnt tinder, and switch out his grabber for his hook. He quickly washed his hand in water that was closer to saltwater then fresh water. It left his hand slightly sticky, or felt that way, but it was clean of the traces of grey. 

He thought about every way his life could be different as he walked to join the crew for the no doubt delicious meal. He thought about if he had married Ahbe, or Nayele, or if Milah hadn’t died. It wasn’t hard, his mind was apt at seeing all outcomes, thanks to his shadow’s corruption. He could have imagined each life with each of the girls. How they would have played out, how he could have lived if life had been a bit different. 

He could imagine a life without the boy. It was just that he really didn’t want to.


End file.
